Making a Cream Soap (Croap)?

[PrairieWolf42]

Hello all! I am wanting to try my hand at hot process soap making. Still figuring out what I want to use in the soap, but I would like it to be a soft soap like a Cella or Proraso.

But I can't find anything on how soft soaps are made. Every cold process I find is for the hard pucks. Does anyone know how to make a homemade Croap from scratch?

Thanks all!

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[MilkCrate]

Subscribed.

 

[psfred]

Extra water will definitely make the finished soap softer, so will extra glycerine. The water will evaporate eventually, but only the soaps I've made with soy wax are anywhere near as hard as bath soap. The potassium hydroxide (minimum 60% of the lye) makes soft soap, and mine are still malleable months after making them.

Higher potassium hydroxide percentages will give softer soaps, with a 100% KOH soap with extra water being nearly a cream rather than a solid soap.

I like mine a little bit harder, hence the 60% KOH.

Use a soap calculator for your recipe, and aim for at least 50% Stearic plus Palmitic acid. Keep the oleic/linoleic acids under 20% if you can, but 30% won't kill the lather. Olive oil isn't a good oil for shaving soap, although not completely useless. Shea and cocoa butter make good superfats, leaving a nice post shave feel, but be warned, cocoa butter in alkaline conditions ALWAYS turns brown eventually....

I also recommend using citric acid and BHT at 0.1 to 0.3%, else the soap will go rancid in a year or so (and if you make a pound of it, you will have PLENTY left in a year!)

 

[PrairieWolf42]

Extra water will definitely make the finished soap softer, so will extra glycerine. The water will evaporate eventually, but only the soaps I've made with soy wax are anywhere near as hard as bath soap. The potassium hydroxide (minimum 60% of the lye) makes soft soap, and mine are still malleable months after making them.

Higher potassium hydroxide percentages will give softer soaps, with a 100% KOH soap with extra water being nearly a cream rather than a solid soap.

I like mine a little bit harder, hence the 60% KOH.

Use a soap calculator for your recipe, and aim for at least 50% Stearic plus Palmitic acid. Keep the oleic/linoleic acids under 20% if you can, but 30% won't kill the lather. Olive oil isn't a good oil for shaving soap, although not completely useless. Shea and cocoa butter make good superfats, leaving a nice post shave feel, but be warned, cocoa butter in alkaline conditions ALWAYS turns brown eventually....

I also recommend using citric acid and BHT at 0.1 to 0.3%, else the soap will go rancid in a year or so (and if you make a pound of it, you will have PLENTY left in a year!)

I found a soap calculator... and it looks very complicated. I get the feeling I may have bit off more than I could chew. Watching people make this stuff seemed easy.

Is it trial and error? Like... just put together a recipe and see if it even makes a soap?

Like, right now as an example, I have:

50% Stearic Acid
15% Oleic Acid
10% Shea Butter
10% Bison Tallow
10% Coconut Oil
and 5% Castor Oil along with a pinch of citric acid.
And then 45% fat weight for water?

I'm having a hard time getting the whole water/lye thing. Sounds like I have more reading to do.

 

[psfred]

Which calculator? They can be set to use % of fat weight for water or % lye concentration (and most soapers prefer the latter). They all calculate the amount of lye you need for the fats you specify, you can vary the water to suit.

Your recipe is fine. I'd ditch the castor oil as I don't find it to do anything for me in shaving soap -- no deleterious effects at less than 10% but no improvement either, especially if you also have coconut oil in there. I have a sneaking suspicion that castor oil is the "fabulous ingredient of the day" while it doesn't actually do anything for soap that coconut oil doesn't.

Check out the soap making forums -- especially soapmakingforum.com. Tons of info out there, you won't have to do all the work again. Ditto for SilverFox (don't remember the url for that one), great recipes and a nice step by step tutorial.

 

[godek]

The excellent SilverFox tutorial can be found at Shaving Soap

In soapmakingforum the must-read thread for soap would be My first shaving soap is a success! But do not go there and ask for someone to post the recipe. Take your time and really read this thread. Might take some time, but afterwards you will know quite a bit about how shaving soaps work.

Kevin Devine has some nice videos on shaving soap on youtube, not sure this link will work

HTH
godek

 

[Natasha]

Hello, I was wondering what you use for a container to put your shaving cream into? And if you don’t mind me asking where you buy/ order it from? Thank you

 

[RayClem]

Soaps are comprised primarily of saponified fatty acids. Many different fatty acids can be used for the soapmaking process. They vary in their molecular weight and in their degree of saturation. In general, saturated fats of high molecular weight like stearic acid and palmitic acid have a high melting point. They are solid at room temperature, so they are ideal for making hard pucks.
Some fatty acids, particularly polyunsaturated fatty acids, are liquid at room temperature, so they are often called oils rather than fats. Cooking oils like olive oil, corn oil, rapeseed (canola) oil, etc. are comprised largely of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Soaps are usually produced from a blend of fatty acids. Many soaps are based on tallow which is in itself a blend of several fatty acids, the ratio of which will depend upon the source of the tallow.

As has already been stated, using potassium hydroxide as the saponification agent will result in a soft soap or cream. Sodium hydroxide produces a harder soap. Most shaving soaps use a mixture of KOH and NaOH to achieve the final texture desired.

The very hardest soaps are often milled several time to mechanically squeeze as much water from the soap as possible.

Most soapmakers do a lot of experimentation before arriving at a suitable formula for shaving soap and, even then, they continue to experiment to make their products even better.

 

[Jetpilot]

I’d do...

Saponifiables
60% soy wax
20% tallow
20% castor

Superfat
2.5% Shea butter
2.5% Lanolin

Additives
Vegetable glycerin - 10% of saponified fats.
3% batch weight of fragrance oil or essential oils

Lye
100% KoH
30% lye solution with distilled water

I like castor oil in my soaps makes for a creamier lather than coconut oil. Coconut oil will creature a lather with bigger bubbles. It’s personal preference. Anytime large amounts of stearic acid are used you’re going to get a pretty hard soap. No way around it. If you use soy wax 415 instead of stearic acid 57-11-4 your result will be a softer soap.

I use this online recipe creator. www.soapmakingfrind.com

 

[Jetpilot]

Hello, I was wondering what you use for a container to put your shaving cream into? And if you don’t mind me asking where you buy/ order it from? Thank you

I started using these.... 06.5 oz Natural LOW PROFILE Jar and Top - Wholesale Supplies Plus Comes out to about $1.00 each including shipping for 36 containers.

 

[baldbarberbrian]

I’d do...

Saponifiables
60% soy wax
20% tallow
20% castor

Superfat
2.5% Shea butter
2.5% Lanolin

Additives
Vegetable glycerin - 10% of saponified fats.
3% batch weight of fragrance oil or essential oils

Lye
100% KoH
30% lye solution with distilled water

I like castor oil in my soaps makes for a creamier lather than coconut oil. Coconut oil will creature a lather with bigger bubbles. It’s personal preference. Anytime large amounts of stearic acid are used you’re going to get a pretty hard soap. No way around it. If you use soy wax 415 instead of stearic acid 57-11-4 your result will be a softer soap.

I use this online recipe creator. www.soapmakingfrind.com

Forgive me, I’m taking a lot of info in... what exactly is “soy wax 415” and “stearic acid 57-11-4?” I’m assuming a brand or formula ratio? Thanks!

 

[Clay S]

Forgive me, I’m taking a lot of info in... what exactly is “soy wax 415” and “stearic acid 57-11-4?” I’m assuming a brand or formula ratio? Thanks!

​

Chemical Abstracts Service Number 57-11-4 is stearic acid. It can go by a variety of names, so the number avoids confusion.

Soy wax 415 is a type of soy wax. 402, 416, 444, and 464 are some others. The melting points and pouring temperatures differ between them. I don't know about other differences. Too high of a melting point would mean that any fragrance added before it solidified would burn off/evaporate.

 

[baldbarberbrian]

Thank you for the clarification.

 

[psfred]

Funny, my experience with castor in shaving soap is that 20% is a lather killer, much harder to lather than a very similar soap without it. 40% stearic acid or soy wax, 40% tallow, 10% coconut oil, and 5% each of shea and cocoa butter with half the last two held back as superfat works the best for me.

60% Soy Wax is pretty high, although it should work OK. Will be pretty firm in my experience, although I only used 40% and 60% KOH in the lye. Lots of ways to make a good shaving soap though, so long as you use at least 60% KOH in the lye.

Soy wax 415 is fully hydrogenated soy bean oil. 67% stearic acid, and it's a hard white material at room temp. Usually used for making candles, so you should be aware that some things sold as soy wax for candle making can contain parafins, not something you want in soap.....

 

[TechClone]

We hear regularly about making harder pucks, and softer soaps, but what about a full blown shaving cream? One that you could squeeze out of a tube, for example.